Chapter Twenty-Five
Armando’s body fell to the floor so quickly and finally there wasn’t any doubt he was already dead. Crouching gingerly, almost in a posture of defense, Martillo bent to touch his shoulder. He rolled the body on its back and looked closely at the face. It rolled slack, the eyes empty: Armando was no longer around and left no messages.
Standing outside the tableau, Dancy saw Martillo’s facial muscles slowly harden and take on sharp vertical creases as he stared at his patron’s body. He seemed to be settling into a new persona as he squatted there, watching Armando Lios Leyva stiffen and pall. He stood up, still keeping his eyes fixed on the dead man’s. When he turned to look at her, she was shocked to see him totally transformed.
There was nothing new in his face, but something had fallen away like old plaster. Whoever he was, he was no innocent naked kid in the forest. He didn’t look exactly lost, but haunted. He stepped close to her and stared into her face. Dancy felt a totally unfamiliar impulse to step back, but kept motionless, her eyes leveled on his as he pored over her, absorbed her. She had never felt such intensity from a man’s presence. He raised his hand very slowly, brought it up to cradle her jawbone, the tips of his fingers brushing her hair, his thumb grazing her lips. He moved his face closer to hers: she didn’t resist the slight pressure of his hand, pulling her into breathing range. With a softness that startled her with its contrast to the hard tightness of his face, he said, “Winner take all.”
She didn’t move, just looked at him. Then she knew what to say. “I’m sticking around.” She couldn’t tell if he’d understood so she reached up to touch his hand, bring it down from her cheek. “I mean, if it’s okay with you. This is your place now.” Martillo looked blank as though what she was saying was just too absurd to register. She turned, still holding his hand, led him to the window and pointed out. He looked out as if he would believe anything he saw there. She whispered, “That’s right, It’s all yours.”
He looked at her, amazed. “You think I care…” he began, but there was a knock at the door and Ramos voice, saying, “Jefe?” Martillo moved smoothly to the door swooping to scoop up the gun as he went. He opened the door with the pistol hanging loosely at his side and motioned Ramos into the room.
Ramos gave off nothing as he registered the body bleeding on the priceless purple carpet, just glanced at Martillo then squatted for a closer look. Expressionless, he crossed Armando’s arms across his chest, gently closed his eyes. His head dropped for a minute, but it was hard to tell what that might mean. He stood up to face Martillo, and asked, “So what do we do now?” Martillo set the gun on the desk and walked over close to say, “Perhaps we should get the men together, see where we stand.”
Ramos said, “Of course. I’ll get right on it.” Turning to go, he muttered, “Permiso.” He hadn’t made it a question, but he waited until Martillo nodded before gliding out the door. At no time had Ramos looked at Dancy.
Martillo turned to here, staring right through her, spoke to her like he was talking to himself, “They will do what I tell them.”
Dancy nodded. “Winner take all.”
Martillo kept staring in her direction. Then he said, “So I have to tell them what to do.”
Dancy nodded again.
Well, the boys have got a new jefe now, she thought. Then the unbidden response: I wonder how they’re going to take to her.
The thought embarrassed her, but she knew it was real, a responsibility that would nag her. She looked at Martillo, standing staring out the window, but she could tell he wasn’t there to talk to her.
They’d all filed into the “Throne Room”: Ramos, Santiamen, a dozen or so others. Dancy hadn’t left, but was sitting against the inside wall, keeping a very low profile. One thing she liked, nobody came carrying guns. At least not in plain sight. She didn’t have to understand a word to see what went down in the short conference. Martillo leaned against the desk, letting them see Armando’s body for themselves. Scattered shock, stoic awe, much making the sign of the cross.
When there was nothing else to do but look at him, Martillo stood up with his hands spread naturally, exposed and open. He spoke, about three sentences. She could even tell when he told them that anybody who didn’t like the setup was free to take off.
And there was no missing the vote of confidence, Nobody had to look at a comrade, nobody thought it over, nobody looked down at the dead man. They looked Martillo right in the eye and swore on for the duration. It was obvious that he was quite touched, and just as obvious that he wasn’t supposed to show it. But he stepped over and touched each man on the arm or shoulder. Then they filed out again. Without anybody saying a word, Morales and Ramos took out knives, sliced a rectangle in the carpet around the area where Armando had bled, and gently rolled him up inside it. Santiamen the only one who showed any confusion and emotion during the short counsel, stepped in to help them lift the body with due gravity and respect. Then they carried it out, leaving Martillo staring down at a square of bare black stones.
After a few minutes Dancy got up and walked over to him, standing just out of arm’s reach and waiting quietly. Finally Martillo looked at her, but there was little in it that she recognized. She said, “I’m so sorry. I had no idea. This was my fault.”
The black Indian eyes seemed to snap back from some great distance. He looked at her for a long moment, then said, “I did what happened here. Not you. Not him. This is a thing that I know and it doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks. Or what anybody else says about it.”
Dancy said, “I’m sorry for him. But also for you. I wish I could be some consolation to you.”
“You are,” Martillo said, “You are. But let me explain one thing to you. This house, these things, the money and business. They aren’t really mine. To think of them that way is more shame than I can stand. I’ll take them over, keep things running for the band here. But listen, the Señor offered me anything he owned and I said no, the only thing I wanted was you. And now you are the only thing I have. The only thing I want. Do you understand that? Do you believe it?”
It took Dancy some time and emotional control to meet his eyes, but when she did there was no possibility of not believing him, or of not understanding him. She said, “I’m sticking around Marty. As long as you want me to.”
“Then that is a consolation,” he said, and stepped up to sweep her into his arms. She kissed the side of his throat, burying her face in the hard slabs of muscle along his neck, suddenly trembling as she felt her first emotional reaction to what had just happened. Martillo swung around and kicked open the door behind the desk, splintering the solid walnut frame as it flew open. He turned sideways and stepped through it, then took the stairs to her bedroom two at a time, holding her tighter as she shivered and spilled tears onto his collar. Neither said a word the rest of the night. Later Dancy thought, What was there to say? If Martillo thought about it, he would have thought, What do I have to say for myself to a woman like that?
Martillo was deeply troubled by Dancy. No matter how frantic he was in claiming her, pounding himself into her like a conqueror’s flagpole, he couldn’t get over the feeling that somewhere, somebody in charge knew that she wasn’t really his and would come around to set accounts to right. Or maybe she would just evaporate. Again. He couldn’t get this across to her, but she seemed to have a vague idea of it. And she told him to just keep working on it until he felt right about it. Break her in. So he worked on it. Pretty much full time.
He was also having second thoughts about his new gang. There was no question of their loyalty to him. They wouldn’t desert without telling him. They wouldn’t betray him. They wouldn’t roll over to the cops or other dealers. They certainly wouldn’t try to take over the outfit. Not even Ramos would think he could run anything bigger than a hit team. Beside, what was there to take over?
And, it suddenly hit him, they wouldn’t make a play for his woman. Martillo’s face got hot and dark at that thought. No, or kill me, he thought bitterly. They are better, trustier men than I am. Thank God.
He was leader in the way an older brother would lead while the father was away, like a sergeant standing in for the dead officer. The men would romp with him for awhile; but he was essentially one of them; a hero, but a homeboy. He wasn’t Meztizo, not a European–he was an employee, not an aristocrat. He’d never even paid them. They were a band of equals and he was designated leader because he was best suited, but somehow they knew the difference that he couldn’t completely see himself. They wanted a superior class of person who could lead them, who would always know what to do. Martillo gave himself a wry grin when he realized that was what he wanted, too.
Especially whenever he paid attention to business. Things were not at all as he’d thought. Money turned out to be unavailable to him. None of the communications and charts made much sense. He didn’t know how to access the computers, or how to contact many people very key to their finances. He was learning the business end from scratch and getting very frustrated, even beginning to suspect that he’d shot himself off the end of a very deep dock. He mentioned these misgivings to Dancy in a quiet moment. What he really said was that he didn’t know where he fit into the thing and here he was running it. Dancy threw him a curve.
“Tell me something, will you?” she was laying on her stomach letting the breeze from the window pat the sweat off her bare back, her fingers lightly stroking the cuts between Martillo’s abdominals. “What’s your real name? I mean, nobody’s named just Hammer, not even Mike.”
Slowly, with long, long hesitations, he told her the story he’d never told anybody else before. Anybody who counted had known, nobody else would have been worth the time and embarrassment. He told her the story of Juanito Del Dios.
By the time he finished, Dancy was sitting up hugging her knees, her cheeks streaked with tears but her eyes shining with something warm and proud. She lifted his hand to her face, wiping tears with it, then pressing it to her lips. When she knew she’d speak normally, she said, “So how about if I just call you Del?”
Martillo rolled over towards her, his grateful smile hidden against her hips. “That boy is no longer alive. I am now Martillo.”
Dancy said, “You got it, Marty.”
“So you see,” he said after a long pause, “I really don’t fit here. Or anywhere.”
Dancy reached under his arms and rolled him on his back, then lay up against him, her head on his bicep, her mouth inches from his ear. “How about me, Marty? I was born into it all. I’m a rich heiress, did you know that? My father is a powerful politician. And you know what? I don’t fit in anywhere either.”
“I didn’t know you were rich,” he said, “I never thought about it. I suppose it makes sense.”
“Oh yes,” she teased lightly. “I have a very wealthy family. Take me back and you could make a lot of money. Get on television.”
He stiffened, then relaxed under her. But his voice was still somewhat choked as he said, “Money? What is that to me? I have plenty of money. But I would keep you if they offered me the world. If it meant I were to be poor again and live in the streets again and eat garbage again, I would still keep you for my own.”
Dancy couldn’t help giggling, “Well, that’s very reassuring. And incredibly sweet. But I think you’re little unclear on the concept, kiddo.”
Whatever that meant. He shrugged, said, “So what should I call you? Here, where you do fit in.”
“Just call me irresponsible.”
He tipped his head up, sighting down her back, butt and legs. Lightly stroking the deep division of her lower back muscles, he said, “Cajeta.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Cajeta, well, it’s a salsa, you know.”
“A salsa?”
He thought for a moment, said, “Salsa de caramello.”
“You got me, baby.”
Easing out from under her, he threw on a robe and slipped out of the room. He came back with a jar of golden brown goo with a goat’s head on the label.
“Goat’s head soup?” She asked, dabbing up a taste of the taffy stuff inside. “Hey, that’s butterscotch.”
“I don’t know about scotch. It’s made from burned goat milk. It’s your color, your taste, your sweet and smooth.”
“My color, huh? Let’s see.” She started pouring the contents out on her stomach. “Well, I’ll be damned, it is about my color, isn’t it? But do I taste like that?”
Martillo, catching on, said, “Well let’s see.” He started a few exploratory licks. For the sake of research.
“Ummm. Now if we just had some whipped cream, Dancy purred. “Hey, how do you say whipped cream in Spanish?”
Martillo grinned, “Crema de Whip.”
“Ah, some day I’ll have to show you the creme de la whip, lover. We could have a sundae kind of love.”
She poured more of the caramel onto more intimate areas. “I ought to dab some where the sun never shines.”
She felt the hard, smooth slabs of muscle shift under her breasts and belly as he chuckled. “I don’t think you should talk like that.”
“Why not?”
“Because it makes me want to fuck you too much.”
“Is there such a thing as that?”
“I think we should find out. Right now.”
“Okay. I just thought of somewhere you fit in just fine.”
But despite her most earthy efforts, she could see the tension mounting in him as he tried to gear up for a task he was never meant for. She took him swimming, which got strenuous, but only replaced his stress with fatigue for a day. They went riding, but she got the feeling he was doing too much thinking as they loped along the row of cottonwoods and across the fields of red flowers.
She burst into his office one morning after he’d begged off breakfast in order to clench up around the telephone in the big office, sitting right in front of the bare stone cutout that glared up at him as if it were Armando’s tombstone. She was wearing riding pants, loose chambray shirt, a pith helmet, and boots. And a Hechler and Koch assault rifle slung over each shoulder.
“Let’s go hunting, ‘K, Mart?” she said brightly, “Get out in the jungle, chase the beasts, shoot off some machine guns. It’s really relaxing. And so nutritious. Let’s blow this popstand, kid.”
Martillo looked up, his face stern, then softening into a smile. He hung up on whoever he’d been talking to, sprung up and strode around the big desk. Dancy stopped him with a flat hand on his chest. “Don’t try to stop me, Palooka. I’ve got the guns.” She took his tie by the knot and pulled it loose, whisking it out from under his collar and tossing it out the window. Then she grabbed his lapels, and when he shrugged the suit jacket off, she whipped it like a matador, backing towards the door, caping him out of the room.
As the door slammed behind them, Santiamen stepped into the office from the stairway door, followed by two peons carrying a large throw rug. Santiamen pointed to the gap in the carpet and they moved toward it with the rug. He nodded as they started to unroll it over the hole. That gringa had a head on her, all right. Then he headed for the door in a hurry to catch up. He just loved hunting javelina in the hills.